


Wasting My Time

by CassandraMulder



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-29
Updated: 2007-01-29
Packaged: 2019-05-12 23:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14737419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassandraMulder/pseuds/CassandraMulder
Summary: Spike is finally fed up with Buffy. PG-13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Up through season six "Smashed".
> 
> Rating: PG-13 for some language and insinuation.
> 
> Classification: Spike angst; songfic; B/S
> 
> Summary: Spike finally gets fed up with Buffy.
> 
> Written: November 11-24, 2001
> 
> Disclaimer: All things Buffy belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, and UPN. They aren't mine in any way, *sigh*, and I am not making any money off of this all consuming hobby. Hmph. So there. I also don't own "Wasting My Time" by Default. They own that as far as I know.
> 
> Author's Notes: Bitter!Spike straight ahead. You gotta love that, he's right in his element. Anyway... This is just me getting revenge for Spike for him. Did that make sense? Probably not. It changed just a tad toward the end, after I saw "Smashed". Had to a little bit, since I know he can hurt Buffy now. Before everyone starts complaining, there's going to be a Buffy-centric sequel, so don't panic.
> 
> To the Angel Mobile, away!
> 
> Thank you to my SuperBeta, Suzi, for the beta! :)

_Well, this is not for real_  
Afraid to feel  
I just hit the floor  
Don't ask for more

Spike didn't have to come up for air, but Buffy did. They parted, she gasped a moment, and then picked right up where they left off.

They really needed to stop making out just anywhere and everywhere. Especially while standing up. They were about to knock each other over, and it wouldn't have been the first time.

Buffy wound her arms around Spike's neck, and all rational thought, or what she had left of it, was lost to his kisses. She had never in her life been kissed like he kissed her. It was hot and cold, pain and pleasure, want and need all wrapped up.

She knew she was crazy for doing this, knew it with every fiber of her being. It was against everything that - well, it was just against _everything_. Slayer rules, the laws of God, man, and nature...

And yet, she couldn't leave him alone now. He was all she had, for all the wrong reasons.

Spike knew what was going on, but as much as he'd been wanting this, he couldn't help himself. He hated himself for it every minute of the day and night. Buffy was using him and he was letting her.

In a way he was using her, too. Yes, he loved her more anything, but this was the only way he could get near her. It might not have been right, but seldom did a desperate man do the right thing.

Seldom did Spike do the right thing.

Until he met Buffy Anne Summers, that is. He'd hardly wanted to do anything but the right thing since he'd fallen for her. Torture, sticking around when he could've left, taking care of Dawn. All of that was completely against his demon.

It had been weeks, but he finally came to his senses, took Buffy by the shoulders, and set her away from him.

"No, no more," he said, looking at her puzzled expression. Then he simply turned to walk away.

"Spike..." Buffy called and ran after him. She laid a hand on his arm. "What's wrong?"

How could she ask him that?

Spike turned slightly to face her.

"You said it yourself before all this started, Buffy. It isn't real. At least not as far as you're concerned. I would give you anything, but I can't take anything from you that's not real."

He turned from her again and continued down the street. That damn spell had worn off long ago, and he was still telling the bloody truth. He could feel Buffy's eyes on him as he walked away.

Back to his crypt, back to his torment.

He'd tried to be there for her, but it just wasn't enough anymore. He had finally hit bottom emotionally.

_I'm wasting my time  
I'm wasting my time_

Back in his tomb, Spike was halfway through his first bottle of bourbon. The second was on the floor beside him.

He'd drink, curse Buffy, drink, curse the day he ever met Buffy, and drink some more.

There was no real getting anywhere with her, God knows he tried. All he'd done was show his love and devotion time and time again, and she'd put him off just as many times.

He was good enough to be her boy toy, but nothing more.

There were thousands of other places he could be, and yet here he was stuck in Sunnydale. Unable to hunt, unable to kill, unable to stop loving that bloody frustrating Slayer, no matter what she did to him.

He just couldn't do it anymore. She wanted him, his kisses, and his bed, but not because it was him. She was running and hiding from everything by being with him.

Being with him wasn't real to her. It was escape. Buffy would suffer through the day, patrol, and come to him at night. She'd forget things, for awhile, and then it would start all over.

It was a vicious, vicious cycle, and Spike, of all people, had to be the one to put a stop to it.

Her friends, the only support she'd ever had, were falling apart around her. Dawn, though she meant well, didn't know how to help her. Giles was gone.

Spike sighed. Now he was starting to sympathize with her, and he couldn't do that. He was supposed to be angry with her, not a guest at her pity party. Which is exactly the way she would want things.

He stood up and gripped the now empty bottle so hard that it shattered in his hand. He broke it and dropped it so fast it barely hurt him, and he moved on to the next bottle of liquor.

As he took the first drink, he heard his door squeak. He didn't even have to turn around to know who it was.

"What are you doing here?" he asked bitterly.

Buffy hadn't quite been prepared for that tone.

"I, I, uh... You left... So suddenly..."

"That I did," he replied distantly.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

_You can't stop the feeling  
There is no reason_

Spike turned around slowly, surveying her with narrowed eyes.

"No you didn't, Buffy."

A small frown creased her forehead. "What?"

He took a step toward her, then another. Slowly, deliberately, trying to intimidate the Slayer, if only just a little bit.

Buffy stood her ground, worried just a little, but trying not to let it show.

"You don't give a damn how _I_ feel," he said, his voice dangerously low.

"I-" Buffy started, but he grabbed her by the arms and pushed her up against the wall.

He held her there, looking into her now huge hazel eyes, unblinking.

"I really don't want to hear anymore lame ass excuses, okay? I have tried to be there for you ever since you came back, before that even, and I thought you were finally learning to trust me. Turns out you just couldn't handle everything that was happening, so you learned to use me instead," he sneered.

Buffy shook her head, not quite comprehending what he said. It must be the truth, she thought. She always did have a hard time with that.

"Look, Spike, I think we need to talk," she barely managed to blurt out.

Dejected, he let her arms go abruptly, his hands falling to his sides. He didn't step away, just stood there in front of her, staring.

"Now you want to talk, do ya, luv? I'd say it's far too late for that. Maybe you should've thought of talking three or four weeks ago."

Buffy was suddenly very interested in the floor.

"I realize what I've been doing, Spike. I do."

That brought the emotion back to his voice.

"I wish I could believe that, Buffy, but I don't think you do realize.

"I love you. I'm _in_ love with you. You know that, and I know that, it's no secret. But see, I'm just a lowly vampire to you still, and that's how you'll always think of me. I'm chipped, sure, so you couldn't possibly have had anything to do with who I am now."

Buffy's eyes were filling up with tears.

"Did you know me three years ago?" Spike asked.

"Yes."

"Is that who I am now?"

"I - I don't think so."

Spike rolled his eyes and sighed. "You don't think so."

He spun around and walked to the other side of the room.

"Well, I'll tell you this now, Slayer. If I still had any desire to kill you, I can guarantee you'd be dead. Again. Nothing would stop me. But it's kinda been there, done that at this point, and just let me say, it didn't really do anything for me.

"You know I can hurt you, you know I can kill you. But I haven't, and I wouldn't. So what is the deal, Buffy?"

All of the sudden her defiant side, the one that wouldn't let her tell him how she really felt, kicked in. She wasn't going to grovel to him anymore, no matter what she'd done.

"Apparently there is no deal, Spike. If I could take back every minute of the last month, I would," she said with venom.

That hardly affected Spike now. Buffy had already done too much else for that to hurt.

"Well, again, that's where you and I are completely different. Because even though it was all make believe, to you anyway, it's all I had. It's all I wanted. So you can leave, and you can stay away, but I'll have that. My feelings for you won't stop just because you don't have any feelings at all."

Buffy swallowed hard. Why did he always have to be so blunt? So straightforward with his feelings?

And who was he to stand there and tell her she didn't have any feelings?

At her non-response, Spike took a deep breath and rolled his eyes.

"Look, Buffy, just do both of us a favor and get out."

She barely gave him another look before she turned and did as he said, leaving him to slump down on the floor and drink himself into a Buffy-free oblivion.

The End


	2. Sequel: Show Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written: November 27 - December 21, 2001
> 
> Classification: S/B; angst; romance
> 
> Spoilers: Season 6
> 
> Distribution: You can have it if you want it, but you gotta ask me first!
> 
> Rating: PG-13 for language and adult themes
> 
> Summary: Sequel to "Wasting My Time". Buffy's finally figured some things out. Now, if only she can make it up to Spike.
> 
> Disclaimer: Spike is mine, and he lives under my bed when I'm not cuddling with him. *shakes head* Uh, unfortunately he's not mine, and neither is anything else relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It all belongs to the incomparable Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon, Mutant Enemy Production, 20th Century Fox, and UPN. No money's being made off of this story. I also don't own the song "Show Me". That's all Bree Sharp's.
> 
> Author's Notes: You really have to read "Wasting My Time" to get this one at all. Which means I suck you into reading another of my stories! Mwahahahahaha! No, don't run away! I'm not really evil... much. ;) And yeah, there's a little Spike adoration in here. Duh! I adore Spike. *g* So sue me. But get in line behind Mutant Enemy, eh? I really had no idea where this was going to end up when I started writing it. It kind of ended up in Mushville, USA, but I really tried to keep it as sap free as possible. Which is hard, because love kind of makes people sappy. Fictional love makes me sappy, for God's sake. Oh well, enough of my yapping. I hope you enjoy. :)

_Solitary girl I have been_  
Living in a cell made of skin  
Sealed inside myself, nothing gets out or gets in  
I can't feel what you feel

Buffy tossed and turned in her cold, hard bed. God, she thought, Spike's floor is more comfortable than this.

Spike. Damn him. He kept creeping into her thoughts.

 _I should have staked him tonight_. She sighed. _Oh yeah, that would've been intelligent. "You love me, now die!" Maybe I just should've staked myself._

She was torturing herself, and with good reason. She'd never treated anyone like she treated Spike. She treated him like dirt. No, worse than that, but she was too tired to think of any other comparison at the moment. Dirt was bad enough, after everything he'd done for her.

What was she thinking? He was the only one she'd gone to for help or support since she'd come back. Spike had told her it wasn't love yet, but was it now?

Buffy ran her hands through her hair and pulled.

Or was she so completely confused that she'd never know?

She was still confused about everything. Who she was, what she was, what she was doing. She'd been brought back to this awful existence against her will, but she had to realize that didn't give her the right to act as she'd been acting.

Making the best of it is what she should've been doing, like it or not. Though that was hard to do when every moment was more painful than the last. Things seemed to get harder the longer she was here, not easier.

Buffy sat up, restless. _Now_ she wanted to go to Spike. _Now_ she wanted to play nice.

She slammed both of her fists into the mattress. Spike would have none of that. Jumping him hadn't been her only mistake where he was concerned. It had only been the first of many.

It was quite possible she'd just lost one of the best things she had. He was all she had, really. The only one that cared about how she was, how she felt, her and Dawn... The list went on, and just as she couldn't live in denial anymore, she'd blown it all.

Her pride killed a lot of things, it seemed.

For so long she tried to keep things in. Alone was safe. Nobody gets in, nobody gets hurt. When she'd become so closed off, she couldn't remember exactly. It had definitely been before she died. Before that she had worried she was losing her ability to love. Worrying about not being able to feel started way before she had jumped off that tower.

Now she needed so much more than to just feel. She needed to feel something real, something genuine. With no resistance.

Buffy got up and got dressed. She was now a girl on a mission.

 _Show me the way to my heart_  
Show me the way  
Show me the way to my heart, baby  
Show me, show me

Buffy crept into Spike's crypt, the door not squeaking, much to her surprise and relief. There was a crunch underfoot though. She looked down at the floor, only to see the glint of broken glass in the moonlight from the open door.

She sighed. The was more than one bottle's worth of glass. It looked like Spike had smashed everything breakable he owned. She'd just have to pick her way through it as best she could.

Buffy closed the door behind her quietly. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she managed to step around the largest shards of glass.

She made her way down to the lower level, where she found Spike, sprawled face down on his bed. His clothes were tossed about the room, all but his jeans, because apparently he'd passed out before he could take them off.

As she looked down at his sleeping form, her eyes welled up with tears. She'd done this to him. She'd always hurt the men that loved her. Anyone that loved her.

Buffy was tired of not accepting what was right in front of her. Denying it had made her act cruelly, and more than once. She wanted to wake him up and tell him she loved him, that she was falling in love with him. But would he believe her after everything she'd ever done and said? Would tonight turn out to be two fights in a row?

She almost jumped when Spike rolled over, but he didn't wake up. He was on his back now, only taking up one side of the bed. As lightly as she could, she sat down on the bed, looking at him in the candlelight.

He'd left them all burning, something that could've been a mistake.

He actually looked peaceful, probably thanks to all the alcohol. His dark lashes swept over his pale skin, and the planes of his face weren't as harshly angular in sleep. He really was quite beautiful.

Buffy smoothed back his hair, the disheveled curls working their own will. He looked almost childlike in this state, so much younger than he even appeared to be.

This feeling was new to her. She'd never wanted to be tender with him before, though sometimes he'd look at her like only he could, and it would almost be her undoing. He could see her in a way no one else ever had. That would frustrate her so, that she'd built up walls around her heart to fend him off.

Those walls had crumbled into dust a little more each time Spike had treated her better than she ever deserved. Every time he professed his love, she'd throw it back in his face. But a tiny part of her would believe everything he said, and a little more of the wall would come down.

These past weeks had turned them into nothing. No matter what she did, or how disagreeable she was at times, he was nothing but good to her. Whether he was making love to her, or letting her cry out her pain and frustration in the middle of the night, he'd never lost patience since that first morning after.

Buffy had never fully seen that side of him. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. It stunned her to her very core. Sometimes when he thought she was sleeping, he would tell her of all the things he would do for her and give her if he could. That's when she came to know William, because when the tough facade came down, that was still who he was.

She would never be able to understand why he loved her the way he did. She'd certainly never done anything to encourage it.

Suddenly, she felt Spike's arm snake around her waist and draw her closer. She was barely breathing as she waited to see what he would do, but nothing unexpected happened, as he was still asleep.

Buffy took a deep breath. She was going to have to wake him. There was no telling what would happen then.

She leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"Spike, wake up. I need your help."

 _I'll give you everything I possess_  
If you tell me where you keep your happiness  
I look more and more and I find less and less  
I don't know what you know  
But I make it up as I go, yeah

Spike slowly came to, and when he realized it was really Buffy sitting on his bed, he drew his arm away from her as if he'd been burned and nearly slammed into the headboard backing up.

"Whoa," Buffy said, standing up.

"What are you doing here?" Spike asked accusingly.

"Nothing!" she said a little too quickly. "Uh, well, that's not entirely true."

Spike had made sure he still had at least some clothes on, and now he was sitting upright on the bed staring at Buffy like she was completely mad.

"I couldn't leave things like they were, Spike. I was lying in my own bed at home and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Spike scoffed. "Yeah, we both know why."

She saw a flash of hurt cross his face, before he slipped his "tough" mask firmly in place.

Buffy no longer wanted to trade barbs or go where they were earlier tonight, but he was making this difficult. He was being difficult because of her, she realized, so she had to do something to avoid another blow up.

"It's not even close to what you think."

Silence.

She kneeled down before him and clutched both of his hands. He didn't respond at all.

Looking into his eyes, she asked, "Spike, _why_ do you love me?" She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.

He'd been right about all the ways she treated him, so how how could he love her?

Spike took one look into her pleading eyes, those big, murky, muddled up, hazel eyes that floored him every time, and his facade came tumbling down.

"I don't know, Buffy," he said, squeezing her hands back. "For everything and for nothing at all."

"Show me, Spike. If I could just understand what it is, because I don't know what you see in me, when I don't see all that much in myself. I think something's crept up on me, but I need to know."

"You came up with the hardest question possible, didn't you?" He sighed. "I'd have to say you crept up on me, too, pet. I never wanted to do anything but kill you, or at least that's what I thought. I dreamt I loved you, and I'm not supposed to dream in the first place.

"Hell, Buffy, it was your fire, your passion that finally got to me. You weren't scared of me for a minute. I couldn't make you scared of me, no matter how hard I tried, even if everyone else was. You were the worthiest opponent I ever had, but it all turned right around on me. You were going to keep your friends and family and this whole bloody, stupid world safe, even if it killed you. And it finally did.

"I suppose that kind of nobility's not supposed to strike anything in a monster like me, but it did. When you died, there wasn't an ounce of satisfaction in me. If it hadn't been for Lil' Bit, I'd have walked right into that sunrise that morning without a second thought.

"If you can't see you're special, then I can't help you, luv. You died for Dawn, because you love her. I only ever hoped that one day - Well, that one day you'd love me that much, that at least you'd be willing. 'Cause if it came down to you or me, I'd be dust before you knew what happened."

Buffy's eyes held unshed tears as Spike finished. She knew he meant every word, and she was tired of trying to reconcile what he was with what he said. It simply couldn't be done.

"I'm tired of playing games, Spike. It's destroying me inside and out. The lying, the denial, it's eating away at me.

"I came here earlier to tell you how I feel, and you came at me, and I ran. And I honestly didn't realize what I was doing to you till then. Not completely."

Buffy shifted a bit, uncomfortable, and Spike pulled her up to sit on the bed next to him. Still holding his hands, she squeezed them as she tried to find the words to go on.

Spike started to speak, but she put a finger to his lips. She had to go on and do this now, before she lost every bit of courage she had.

"I - I love you, Spike."

Her words hung in the damp, cool air of the crypt.

That was it. She'd finally struck the mouthy vampire speechless.

She could see his blue eyes boring into hers, wondering if this was real. So many emotions passed through them in that one moment, that she no longer questioned what he could and could not feel.

He had been the one that taught her to feel again, and she had no right to question him.

Inside, Spike didn't know whether to rejoice or despair. He also didn't know if this would end in heartbreak or happiness.

But he couldn't really think about that right now. His Slayer, his Buffy had finally admitted what he hoped for all along. He couldn't think of anything. There were no words in the English language to express what he was feeling.

Slowly, he leaned forward and gently kissed her. There was little of the usual desperate hunger and passion. This time there was only tenderness.

Buffy wound her fingers through his soft curls, savoring the feel of him. It was completely different without the animosity, the negative tension that always seemed to be between them. Most of which had been because of her and what she wouldn't let herself feel.

Spike pulled away, looking into Buffy's eyes, intent, searching for truths. He had to ask, had to make sure.

"Buffy, you're sure? It's for real this time?" he implored, his voice husky.

"I'm sure," she whispered. "It's completely real."

She kissed him again, this time ready to go further.

Spike pulled away briefly. "I want to do this right this time," he insisted.

"Lead the way," Buffy whispered.

_Show me the way to my heart  
Baby, show me, show me..._

The End


End file.
